State Senate races: Republicans dishing dirt through mail

Republicans have signaled early, in two key State Senate races, that they are ready to go negative with crude attack mailings with November’s election day still 99 days away.

The stakes, in what’s expected to be a multi-million-dollar battle, are big scale. A Republican-dominated coalition has run the Washington State Senate for the past two years. Democrats are seeking to take back control. A key renegade Democrat, Senate Majority Leader Rodney Tom, is retiring from the Legislature.

The state Republican Party has sent out four hit pieces on Democratic State Senate candidate Seth Fleetwood. The battle for control of the Washington State Senate is intense.

Voters in Bellingham and Whatcom County, represented by endangered 42nd District GOP State Sen. Doug Ericksen, have already been sent four hit pieces by the state Republican Party attacking Democratic challenger Seth Fleetwood.

“This is not a negative attack. It’s accurate information for the voters,” insisted State Republicans’ spokesman Steve Beren.

But being “accurate” can be misleading. For instance, attacking Fleetwood’s service on the Bellingham City Council, one mailer charged: “Seth Fleetwood voted four times to raise property taxes by the maximum amount allowed by state law.”

The “maximum amount” — set down by a Tim Eyman initiative — is just 1 percent. During eight years on the Whatcom County Council, Fleetwood opposed raising property taxes.

A second hit piece seeks to define Fleetwood as a “career politician” who “moved here in May.”

Fleetwood is a Bellingham lawyer who served eight years on the County Council, and a four-year term as a Bellingham city councilman. Both elected office are part time. Opponent Ericksen has served six terms in the state House of Representatives, one term in the Senate, and has run for Whatcom County Executive.

“I’ve lived most of my life in the 42nd District,” Fleetwood said. “I was born in the 42nd District. I grew up in the 42nd District. I’ve lived 18 of the last 20 years in the 42nd District. The redistricting commission moved the boundaries further north in Bellingham, so as to make the district more Republican.”

The bottom line seems apparent: Fleetwood is a threat to Ericksen, who lost badly in his bid to become Whatcom County Executive.

A Republican PAC paid to send hit pieces to Eastside Democrats, accusing their party’s State Senate candidate of being a pro-Bush plant. Such mailings are designed to depress voter turnout.

A similar situation has cropped up in the 45th District, which includes Bellevue and Redmond on the Eastside.

The Democrats have fielded a U.S. Naval Academy grad, technology worker and Harvard MBA named Matt Isenhower to challenge Republican State Sen. Andy Hill.

Eastside Democratic voters have lately received two hit mailers. In one, the message is “Matt Isenhower is a Great Republican,” and “If Matt Isenhower is a Democrat, then Dick Cheney is a pacifist.” The other shows a picture, “Matt Isenhower and His Republican Mentors,” showing the Democratic candidate flanked by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

The mailings carry the tag “Good Government Leadership Council.”

The “Good Government” group is a title only and spin off of the Leadership Council, a major Republican fundraising PAC in the state. Big Republican givers to the Leadership Council, the Building Industry Association of Washington, and the Washington Restaurant Assn., are paying to bamboozle Democratic voters.

“These mailers were produced and sent to Democratic voters by the Republican Party,” in the words of Andrew Villeneuve, head of the Northwest Progressive Institute and an active Democrat.

True, Isenhower comes from a Republican family and his wife worked in the Bush Administration. He did, as a Navy officer, help prepare briefing papers for President Bush on a trip to Washington State.

But that does not make him an architect of the Iraq War.

Mailings are a means of dishing dirt, under the radar and away from media scrutiny. They are often designed to hit just before a primary or general, with no time for response. They are usually designed to depress the vote for the targeted candidate.

The state has seen several famous examples. The Family Research Council delivered two particularly nasty attacks on State Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen in closing days of the 2012 campaign. Haugen had cast a key vote for marriage equality.

While the Council advertises its Christian values, the mailings viciously distorted Haugen’s positions and her personal values.

In the 2010 campaign, Washington mailboxes filled with flyers charging that Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., had lost touch with Washington State and had become a creature of the U.S. Capitol.

Fine print showed the origin of the mailings, a group called Crossroads Grassroots Political Strategies located at 1401 New York Avenue N/W. in Washington, D.C. Crossroads GPS is an “educational” group co-founded by Bush political adviser (and Fox News pundit) Karl Rove.